Sue
Zhou, a native of China and an experienced
photographer. In past expeditions she has taken
groups of up to 16 people to explore such places
as the remote 60,000-acre Nine Villages Valley
Natural Scenic Area, home to giant pandas and
golden monkeys, listed in the Chronology of
Recognition of World Heritages; and to Yellow
Dragon Scenic Area with its unique marbled
corridor of shining limestone, added to the
World Natural Legacy List in 1991 and UNESCO’s
Catalog of World Natural Heritages in 1992.
Members photographed the 220-foot giant
Buddha—the world’s largest statue of the
deity--carved into a cliff above the confluence
of three rivers in Sechuan Province, strolled
Yunnan’s fabled Stone Forest, gazed at the
brilliantly colored rice terraces of Yunnan and
filmed strange quartzite mountains in the
265,000-acre Wulingyuan Scenic Area of Hunan.
Sue’s itinerary
for her forthcoming expedition will include a
visit to China’s unique Siberian Tiger Park
where the animals roam free over a vast acreage
(but always show up for pictures visitors can
take at feeding time from specially designed
vehicles). Besides the Siberian tigers, the
park contains lions, white lions, black jaguars,
white tigers, snow tigers, silver wraiths,
“ligers” (lion-tiger offspring) and other rare
cats.
Her group will do
photo shoots in the 518,000-acre Zhalong Nature
Reserve, China’s largest wetland reserve, famous
for its rare birds such as the endangered
red-crowned crane, the white-naped crane, the
Siberian crane and the swan goose. A second
photo opportunity will present itself at Bird
Island in Lake Qinghai Hu, which draws an
estimated 10,000 migratory birds each spring..
Bird-watching pavilions there provide ideal
camera points.
In Xinjiang
Province north of Inner Mongolia, members will
be able to take photos of scenic parts of the
fabled Silk Road where camels for 2,000 years
carried trade goods to India and Europe. There
the expedition will also visit villages of the
Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities.
The expedition
will depart May 23 and return June 7. For more
details, visit
www.zhousu.us.
Click on the China Tour 2008 section.
